The perspective that it's all a status game is legitimate in its own way, but not the only way to view things. I find there's a useful distinction to draw betwen trying to influence people's perceptions directly versus trying to do something valuable and trusting people to perceive it for themselves, and find the latter a lot more fun than the former.

See, the thing is that you keep calling it a "status game" when it's not really clear what you mean, other than to belittle work others do because it isn't solving algo puzzles.